In Pa., even Republicans want Specter to support Employee Free Choice Act

[Omaha Steve]

http://transitional.pww.org/article/view/15552/

Author: John Wojcik
People's Weekly World Newspaper, 05/08/09 11:21

The latest Quinnipiac Poll in Pennsylvania helps explain what may be Sen. Arlen Specter’s second switch on the Employee Free Choice Act.

According to the poll, twice as many Republicans want Specter to support the worker rights measure than want him to oppose it.

Twenty-six percent of Republicans say Specter’s opposition to the worker rights bill makes them less likely to back him; only 13 percent say it makes them more likely to vote for him.

The numbers for Republicans vary little from the numbers for Democrats, Republicans and independents, taken as a whole. Twenty-three percent of Pennsylvania voters overall say Specter’s opposition to the Employee Free Choice Act makes them less likely to back him; 14 percent say it makes them more likely to support him.

Officials at the United Food and Commercial Workers and at the AFL-CIO told the World they attributed the poll’s findings to the enormous lobbying effort and campaign for employee free choice that unions have mounted in Pennsylvania and elsewhere. They also pointed out that many Republicans in the state belong to labor unions and that the membership of the unions has become well informed on the issue.

Pennsylvania AFL-CIO officials have said they told Specter that he would not get their support unless he backed the Employee Free Choice Act.

On Wednesday, Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), the lead sponsor of the employee free choice bill, said that his staff and Specter’s staff were near an agreement that will allow Specter to return to his earlier position in support of the legislation.

jwojcik @ pww.org

[T Wolf]

1. "near an agreement that will allow Specter to return to his earlier position in support..."

What ever happened to supporting something because you believe in it?

What the fuck does making some god-damned agreement have to do with supporting (or not) unions? They have to craft some bullshit conditional contract so that Spectre can change his mind?

This tells more about the disaster that American politics/government has become than anything else.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

2. Turn the light off on your way out, Arlen.

[DebbieCDC]

3. Specter must want another committe chairmanship first

Fucking snake in the grass.

[The Magistrate]

4. So Disloyal Democrat Arlen Specter Is seeing The Light, Sir?

"What a nimrod! What a ultra-maroon!"

[AlinPA]

5. Living in PA for the last 40 years and now seeing the (D) next to Specter's name is screwy.

The man is a republican. We need to get him out of that seat by running a Democrat.